Anne Brontë is the least well known of the three Brontë sister novelists. Written at the same time as Jane Eyre, her first novel, Agnes Grey (1847), is the story of an unhappy governess. Her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), is considered a more ambitious and passionate work. Charlotte Brontë was disturbed by Anne's depiction of the heroine's alcoholic husband, who was based on Branwell Brontë .

The Life of Charlotte Brontë , by Elizabeth Gaskell, was commissioned by Reverend Patrick Brontë Just after Charlotte's death and was originally published in 1857. Gaskell, one of the best-known English novelists of her time, had met Charlotte in 1850, and the two became close friends. Gaskell's frank biography caused some controversy and passages were cut from it in subsequent editions. However, the first edition of the work remains in print...